By Jerry Sowden - George Fowler of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an on-site construction supervisor for the Venango Conservation District's Sugar Creek bank restoration/remediation project, directs excavator operator Ralph Porterfield as he places large boulders over silt screens on the reconfigured creek bank near Wyattville.

By JUDITH O. ETZEL

Staff Writer

So much for a picturesque, tranquil, babbling brook - a curvy section of the typically sedate Sugar Creek near Wyattville is roaring with the sound of heavy machinery stuffing earthen chunks every which way.

"We've done several stream bank stabilizations before but this is the biggest one," said Marc Rickard, looking down over a steep embankment at the remediation project. "It was a sheer cliff and we're softening it, taking it back to where it was at least 25 years ago."

Down below, a wading boots-encased Lance Bowes stands in midstream to monitor the nearby shoreline work.

Rickard and Bowes work for the Venango Conservation District, a public agency that is spearheading work to stop the continuing erosion of a sharp bank along Sugar Creek. The stream section is along Route 427 less than a mile from the village of Wyattville.

Earthmoving efforts began a week ago and will be completed two weeks from now.

It is much more than a pretty-it-up project along a creek that boasts a 150-square-mile watershed. Sugar Creek originates in Crawford County and flows south into French Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.

The sharp bend in the creek at Wyattville has allowed water to wash away significant parts of the creek bank over the years and the results have dramatically affected agriculture and aquatics.

"This project is important for several reasons," said Bowes, watershed coordinator for the Venango Conservation District. "Nearby Route 427 is impacted by the erosion. Farmland is being lost. The stream, listed as a cold water fishery, is being muddied. We believe this project will fix those issues."

The roadway

In 1986, PennDOT built a rock wall along the stream bank to protect the nearby Route 427 roadway against erosion. Still, Sugar Creek has continued to cut into that wall and now threatens to ruin the work done earlier.

"By stabilizing that bank, which had turned into a sheer cliff, we can stop those cuts and prevent more from occurring," said Bowes.

The fields

Farm land is adjacent to the Sugar Creek stretch, and it is being eroded away "at a rate of four to six feet a year," Bowes said. That loss has added up to a drop in agricultural production.

"This loss of land equates into lost productivity which translates into lost profit," Bowes said.

The stream

Continuing erosion was plugging a lot of sediment into the creek and it was harming aquatic life, said the conservation officer. At the current rate of erosion, said Bowes, the bank was dumping about nine tons of sediment a year into the waterway.

"Sugar Creek is listed as a cold water fishery and it is a stocked trout stream," Rickard said. "And it is a wild trout stream, meaning it has a naturally occurring (trout) population. Sedimentation was destroying it."

The improvement

The project does more than only react to a substantial erosion problem. It is also pro-active because it includes some designs that will enhance the fishery as well as preclude future bank erosion.

Rock and log veins, or boom-like extensions that protrude into the water, will be added along the newly rock-fortified bank.

"They will provide a habitat by creating pockets for fish and they will force the main flow of water away from the bank and back to the center of the creek," Rickard said.

Ramping up efforts to enhance the fish population in that stretch of Sugar Creek, said Bowes, is ecologically sound but also carries a financial reward.

"There are hundreds if not thousands of anglers who fish this section of the stream each year," Bowes said. "Some of them travel a great distance just to do so and that helps to stimulate the local economy."

The Sugar Creek project cost about $150,000 and the money came from two Growing Greener grants offered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Each grant recognizes environmental stewardship.

The cost is probably much higher, said Bowes, because of "incredible help" from a variety of sources.

In-kind contributions in the form of design work, surveying, manpower, materials and equipment were given by the federal and state fish and wildlife agencies, state conservation and forestry departments, PennDOT, Venango County, the county's Senior Environmental Corps, private landowners, Cooperstown Sand and Gravel, PennSoil RC&D and others.

"It was pretty amazing that all these partners - some private business, some non-profit groups, some government - came together in this project," Bowes said. "There are many creeks in the county that need this type of stabilization work and so we're putting some plans together."